I Think WAY Too Much!

Tag: psychology

On the 10th September, we are reminded that a person dies of suicide every 40 seconds, commemorating World Suicide Prevention Day.

On the 10th October, we will be reminded that mental health issues are a part of reality and we need to be aware of them, not take them lightly. It will be World Mental Health Day.

On the 3rd September, my friends and I, as our school’s Mental Health Ambassadors, attended a Suicide Prevention workshop, organized by Befrienders, a Malaysian NGO and helpline that offers emotional support and promotes psychological well-being.

As a psychology undergrad student, the topics surrounding suicide, depression, anxiety and the likes were nothing new to me. As one trained in mental health first aid, immediate interventions regarding psychological distress were also not novelties. As a current mental health counselling student (taking it as an elective this very semester), the workshop was more of a refreshing aspect than anything else. Yet.

Yet, this workshop still made a significant difference in my perspectives regarding mental health awareness.

Actually An Evil Nymph’s Blog blog anniversary was on the 1st August and it wasn’t until WordPress congratulated me on that milestone that I realised it. I knew 1st August was something special! Dang it!

Anyways, at that time, I had just published a post a few hours earlier and so I decided to wait a little more before putting up a proper ‘Happy Blog Anniversary’ post. However, yes, since I’m back to school and new into my third year, my responsibilities got in the way. In fact, I would have completely forgotten about blogging it if it was not for my Google Calendar, in which I have set a goal to blog once a week.

That’s how crazy life gets when the semester starts and you are involved in many things, including being a (High, sometimes) Distinction student. I literally need my phone to remind me of everything, haha!

Anyway, it’s been five years, guys. Five years since I started blogging. I can’t describe how much it has opened my eyes to the world… and my own. My blogging style has changed a lot throughout the years, but I believe that the main reason I got so immersed in blogging was not only my passion for writing, but my search for who I am, an identity, to find myself.

After months of an internal conflict between watching the movie ‘Lucy’ for psychological curiosity purpose and not watching it because it is based on a scientific myth (that we used only 10% of our brains), I finally gave it a go and YOLO, I watched it, not expecting anything extraordinary.

Knowing that this week I’m going to start studying Abnormal Psychology reminded me of something I have been thinking of posting on this blog for more than a week and, as you’ve probably guessed from the title, it’s all about my experience with panic attacks.

It’s funny, because when I had these so-called panic attacks, I actually didn’t believe they were panic attacks, because although I believe in mental disorders and most likely to sympathize with those suffering from it, I couldn’t accept the fact that I, personally, could seriously develop one of any psychological symptoms.

Actually, the last panic attack I had was on the 3rd January 2010, which is quite a long time ago. So yeah, no panic disorder or agoraphobia!

So four years ago, I thought I had some respiratory problems, since I had these panic attacks, not regularly, but often to the point that I knew exactly what was happening to me when it happened and what I had to do to resolve it (which was to drink water). It was only last Saturday that, on reading the panic attack symptoms multiple times, I realised what I genuinely had.

It is a relief to know actually, because I always thought I had some kind of rare disease… when in fact it’s the opposite!

The only scary thing is that even if I only remember my last 2 panic attacks, I KNOW that they were not the only 2 that happened and I thus can’t recall the first time I ever had one and how I was able to figure out how to cope with it. One thing I know for sure is that my parents only found out about it during my last one… so I coped with all the others alone. Freaky.

Anyway, I know there are many people out there who have experience panic attacks and I’ve wanted to write this post to tell you that I know that horrible terror, that fear and helplessness, but also that it’s all right and we’re not aliens.

I also want to share my last 2 panic attacks, since they’re the only ones I remember, because I know that although they are all typically the same, they are still different to the one suffering from them. Every time.

1. How I know that the first of the two occurrences that I remember is not my first panic attack relies on how I responded to the panic attack in question. Let me clarify: it was in the middle of the night, while I was Scout camping (in a tent in nature) with my fellow mates. I suddenly woke up choking, struggling to speak but unable to, drawing quick survival breaths, feeling both paralyzed and incredibly restless. My friends woke up at once and on seeing me started to panic, although it was clear they wanted to help. They asked me what was going on and what I needed. Of course, since I couldn’t speak, my mind could only focus on the last question and I knew I needed water, because at that moment I knew that whatever I was experiencing wasn’t a new thing and I knew I needed water to calm down. No first-time-panics. Only the panic attack and the trying to reach out to a bottle of water and ‘mouthing’ the term ‘de l’eau’ (‘water’ in French), something which my friends immediately understood. Thus I was given water and I was fine. I also remember how their eyes were so wide-stricken with fear and when they asked me what it was, I recall my answer word for word: “Oh I don’t really know but it’s nothing really; it actually happens from time to time. I usually only need water and I’m fine.” Maybe I had dehydration problems or respiratory problems or both, but I never though of ‘panic attack’, and for sure, I had this weird way of accepting this horrible sensation as a part of myself…

2. The last time I had a panic attack I was at home. I was actually stuck in bed because of fever and flu… well I was pretty bad, and the reason I was in such a condition was because I purposefully went out (it was a Saturday) although I wasn’t feeling well in the morning. It was my last day as a scout member and I had this urge to see my friends one last time, you see. Anyway, so I was in bed and both my parents were here with me, I think they were getting some medication ready for me or something. Then, the attack happened. And it was the very first time my parents witnessed one of these. By the way, I think that I never told my parents about it because I didn’t feel it was really urgent or serious. Anyway, the worst thing during that particular attack. was it was my very very worst panic attack ever. This time, it was so intense I really thought that I was going to die if I didn’t sip water in time. Yeah, I felt like a bomb, ready to go off at any second. I had no idea how much time was left for me. I really started to panic, more than before, but… my parents didn’t do anything!!! They were so shocked that they were paralyzed as much as I was. And although I know I shouldn’t have felt that way, I was completely furious because I blamed them for not reacting quickly and giving me water. (Well they did finally understood that I needed water by the way I was frantically trying to say ‘de l’eau’!)

Actually I believed and I still believe that I was so angry that my panic attacks totally stopped! The thing is that on that last occurrence a new fear sprouted: that of being left alone in the middle of a crowd, which was watching me suffer and did nothing to help me. I had a similar dream when I was young and on that Saturday it just felt that the dream was coming true except that instead of a crowd there were my parents… which was worse!

**Surely this is a continuation of my Psychology series – for the first time in Malaysia at last!!! – where I write down whatever crazy observations I make about mental and personality… derangements (I don’t have a degree yet – just started my BA actually! – so ‘health’ or ‘disorders’ would be too professional, which I’m not. At all.). Actually just read for fun or if you like to overthink like me and crave for thought-provoking stuff.**

I don’t know about you but every time my laptop undergoes an installation of any kind of programs, I freak out about the possibility that it will fail and eventually ruin my laptop forever.

I have this irrational fear that I will lose my laptop, in the figurative sense, that is, that it will cease to function.

And sometimes it makes me see my work like something which isn’t even worth to be called ‘work’, you know what I mean?

That’s what happened when I watched my previous and old videos (out of boredom) on YouTube… I suddenly found so many flaws in every vlog and I wasn’t even proud of any of them anymore.

My oral English skills aren’t even that good, are they? I’m such a bad actress, ain’t I? No drama/performing arts club would ever accept me, right?

However, instead of being down and angry, I was immediately motivated to do better videos next time. And when I mean ‘immediately’… I meant that I put down an idea on paper right away and acted it out the very next day… I mean, morning.

And here’s the video:

Yeah, tip: if you’re out of ideas, make something about being out of ideas; if you’re being overwhelmed by your inner critic, yeah make something about that!😉

Frankly, I never thought I would have been that person one day; I never thought that seeing what I do as being ‘bad’ would push me to work harder and make a better job the next time. I always thought I was the kind who would end up being depressed and discouraged… well, maybe I was like that before, I can’t remember.

**Surely this is a continuation of my Psychology series where I write down whatever crazy observations I make about mental and personality… derangements (I don’t have a degree yet so ‘health’ or ‘disorders’ would be too professional, which I’m not. At all.). Actually just read for fun or if you like to overthink like me and crave for thought-provoking stuff.**

Read that title again. Now, what if I had written ‘I am depressed… and I can’t bear it anymore’? You’d have a different response to that, right? So being sad and letting that feeling eat you from your insides are alarming and should even be clinically considered, but being angry and letting that feeling eat you from your insides are not?

What I want to mainly point out in this post is that I’ve been surprised to discover that ‘anger’ is neglected by the exceptional APA (American Psycho Association, something like that :P) while ‘depression’ is well… it’s all over the place among the pages of the DSM (Bible of Psys)! Wtf?

Before you tell me, hey but there’s the Intermittent Explosive Disorder that’s all about being angry, you should reflect on the fact that it’s not called ‘Anger Disorder’ which only adds to the realisation that this disorder only focuses on only one type of anger (among manyyy)… which is poor compared to the amount of different types of depression that officially exist!